The Councils of Rimini and Seleucia

A generation after the council of Nicaea, its creed and its word homoousios, “of one substance”, were still in dispute. Socrates lists nine creeds put out after that of Nicaea, down to the one adopted at the end of these councils (Socrates, Church History 2.41). The emperor Constantius II decided to call a general council to bring the bishops to agreement and, because of the distances, divided it in two. The western bishops were to meet at Ariminum in Italy and the eastern at Nicomedia (Socrates, Church History 2.37); after an earthquake there and two more changes of plan the easterners met at Seleucia in Isauria (Socrates, Church History 2.39). Athanasius, who wrote while the council was still the talk of the day, held that its real purpose was to set Nicaea aside (Athanasius, On the Councils 1).

More than four hundred bishops came to Ariminum (Athanasius, On the Councils 8) (Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle 2.41). Valens, Ursacius and four others produced a creed drawn up at Sirmium in the emperor’s presence and headed with the date. It called the Son “like the Father in all things” and asked that the word “essence” (ousia), as one the Scriptures do not use of Father and Son, should never again be used of God (Athanasius, On the Councils 8). The council refused it, declared that Nicaea was enough, deposed the six, and wrote to Constantius asking that nothing be changed (Athanasius, On the Councils 9–11). The emperor replied that he had not yet been able to receive its envoys and that the bishops must await their return (Athanasius, On the Councils 55).

What followed is told by Sulpicius Severus, a Gaul writing about forty years later. The envoys, he says, were made to accept communion with their opponents and a creed without the word ousia; the prefect Taurus had orders to keep the bishops until all had signed; and in the seventh month, worn down by winter and want, the last twenty yielded, once Valens and Ursacius had agreed that they might add statements of their own condemning Arius (Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle 2.43–44). Jerome, who cites the council’s acts, says that Valens there anathematised anyone who called the Son “a creature, like other creatures”, and afterwards claimed to have denied only the likeness (Jerome, Against the Luciferians 18–19).

At Seleucia about 160 bishops met in September 359 (Athanasius, On the Councils 12) (Socrates, Church History 2.39). The majority accepted Nicaea except for the word homoousios, which they found obscure; a smaller party led by Acacius rejected the Nicene formula (Athanasius, On the Councils 12). Acacius, bishop of Caesarea in Palestine, offered a creed that set aside both homoousion and homoiousion, condemned “unlike”, and confessed the Son as like the Father (Socrates, Church History 2.40). The majority deposed him and his allies and reported to the emperor (Athanasius, On the Councils 12). Hilary of Poitiers, exiled from Gaul to Phrygia, had been brought to the council with the rest, and Sulpicius says that he was received into communion there (Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle 2.42).

At Constantinople, Sulpicius continues, the delegates of Seleucia were forced to follow the westerners, and those who refused were deposed and exiled (Sulpicius Severus, Chronicle 2.45). A synod there confirmed the creed read at Ariminum, with changes. It says that the Son is “like the Father, as the divine Scriptures say and teach”, without the words “in all things”; it abolishes the word ousia and adds that “subsistence” (hypostasis) too is not to be named of Father, Son and Holy Spirit (Athanasius, On the Councils 30) (Socrates, Church History 2.41). Jerome wrote some twenty years later that “the whole world groaned, and was astonished to find itself Arian”; the bishops who had signed, he says, protested afterwards that they had been deceived (Jerome, Against the Luciferians 19). Constantius died late in 361 (Socrates, Church History 2.47). Athanasius, in his work on the two councils, wrote that those who accepted everything of Nicaea and doubted only its one word were not enemies but brothers, who meant the same and disputed only about the word (Athanasius, On the Councils 41). The council of 381 (The First Council of Constantinople) decreed that the faith of Nicaea should stand (Council of Constantinople (381) canon 1).